We prepared amide compounds which were derived from ferulic acid using various amines, and investigated their stimulatory effects on insulin secretion using rat pancreatic RIN-5F cells. Most of these compounds exhibited significant promotion of the insulin-release at a concentration of 10 muM and in particular, the amides having n-butyl, n-pentyl, pyrrolidine, and piperidine groups showed high activity. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.